The evaluation of Operation Topaz for child sexual and criminal exploitation on the health and wellbeing of service users
Funding:
Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB Research Capability Funding.
What is the problem?
Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) are growing areas of concern for society currently, but especially for the police and related frontline services. Young People impacted by CSE and CCE have a range of negative health and wellbeing vulnerabilities and outcomes, as opposed to those not impacted by them.
Operation Topaz is a police-led intervention based in Avon and Somerset to disrupt Child Sexual Exploitation. With the growing recognition that health, public health, and criminal justice issues are intertwined (EpiCrim), we need to get better at understanding the health and wellbeing outcomes of criminal justice interventions like Operation Topaz.
What is the aim of the research?
To understand the feasibility of evidencing, collecting, and measuring health and wellbeing outcome data for the young people aged below 16 who are victims of CCE and CSE, that it works with. As criminal justice organisations, like the police, are starting to think about health and wellbeing outcomes of their work, the research would understand how this is measured, whether it’s fit for purpose and if it can be improved.
How will this be achieved?
We will examine the data (including health, social, education, mental health, and criminal justice outcomes data) collected by Avon and Somerset police and partners, related to Operation Topaz to understand how it is formulated and used. This will help us understand and formalise how Topaz might work (theory of change), and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set out by the police, both locally and nationally.
We will also interview key members of the Topaz team, Avon and Somerset police and partner organisations, including schools, health, social work, youth justice, social care and young offenders institute. In doing this we will look to understand how the processes and outcomes from Operation Topaz can be understood from a health outcomes perspective, and therefore better understand how it matches to Police, NHS, education and social care KPIs.
Who is leading the research?
Professor Kieran McCartan, Professor of Criminology, the University of the West of England.
Further information
For more information or to get involved with this project, please contact bnssg.research@nhs.net.